A collective letter from Iranian artists to artists around the world
We, regardless of our nationality or origin, belong to a borderless and utopic territory called “art”, located in a universe named “culture”; no power can deprive us from holding this shared identity.
An open letter
From: Iranian artists
To: Artists across the world
19 March 2020
We, regardless of our nationality or origin, belong to a borderless and utopic territory called “art”, located in a universe named “culture”; no power can deprive us from holding this shared identity.
Thanks to our inborn cultural understanding in this shared land of wonder, we the artists, from Asia, Europe, America or Africa, enjoy the privilege of influencing the public opinion and the ability to transform unfavoured conditions.
We all have experienced narrating about love and hatred, peace and war, knowledge and ignorance, good and evil and vice and virtue as well as salvation and redemption—through our works of art—in light of our self-motivated cultural wisdom and quality. We are gifted, thanks to our artworks, to have envisioned a universe much bigger than the community we physically live or the country we belong to by our nationality.
Artificial enmity, factitious divisions, false biases and negative stereotyping concocted by political powers to cause us distanced from each other, have only made us more determined to keep together and become more capable and influential through collective solidarity.
Now, all of us—from any faith or geographical location- face a common and powerful enemy that is rapidly spreading from one place to another, ravaging our towns and cities and terrorizing our fellow human beings; we are equally vulnerable to this invisible microscopic foe, and no single man will feel safe unless and until it is contained everywhere.
COVID-19 is not only a fatal virus which necessitates maximum prevention and costly cure; it poses a simple but historic ethical question on how the community of nations interact and cooperate to defeat this common existential threat.
While every nation, big or small, is devising their own way to battle corona pandemic, the Iranian nation has to fight an additional challenge, i.e., unilateral sanctions, which are hampering its struggle against coronavirus.
The injustice caused by US' unilateral sanctions has left the Iranians handcuffed in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. The sanctions have made innocent Iranians more vulnerable to this disease by depriving Iranian patients of necessary medicine and medical care.
It is heartbreaking to see that politics seem to have found in corona outbreak an opportunity to further hit where it hurts most by tightening unjust pressure against the Iranian nation. But we, as the artists representing the shared sense of humanity, are expected to stand up against whatever divides human beings and denigrates humanity.
It is only expected from the world’s freedom-loving artists—already facing the same serious menace—to ask for a human response to the question of “corona”; a response that emanates from our shared humanity and transcends power politics and short-sighted geopolitical whims.
The corona crisis shall be, sooner or later, defused with less or more tolls; however, its shared but different stories will remain with us and recounted for coming generations forever—the story of exhausted nurses who danced on the contaminated hospital floors just to keep the spirits of patients and colleagues up and direct their attentions away from the shortage of medicine and equipment; the story of physicians who refused to go home for weeks and browsed, with no protective mask, gloves or gown, among patients being treated in the corridors or on the floors of hospitals.
These all shall remain stored in the world’s historical memory and will be narrated sooner or later—by you or us—for the generations to come. If only it could not become too late for the most influential and dedicated artists of the world—who may not have the opportunity again—to narrate to politicians and powerful leaders the story of the brutality of sanctions against the people of Iran during the corona crisis. The people of Iran are today facing double crises: a common crisis called “coronavirus” which you perfectly know; and the crisis of “sanctions” which we hope you never ever come to know
For us the Iranian artists, it is now important to know how you—the world’s artists—think and react to alleviate the pain and suffering of corona patients and vulnerable children and the elderly in Iran as well as the devastating shortage of medicine and equipment the Iranian big-hearted health practitioners are suffering in their tough fight with this dreadful outbreak.
Respectfully yours,
Signed by (in alphabetical
List of signatories (so far):
Anahid Abad
Akbar Azad
Poyan Azadeh
Negar Azarbaijani
Ali Ashtiani-Pour
Amir Asna-Ashari
Saman Ehteshami
Habib Ahmadzadeh
Mostafa Ahmadi
Hamid Ahya
Pourya Akhvas
Pirouz Arjmand
Bahman Ardalan
Homayoun Assadian
Habib Esmaeili
Mahnaz Afzali
Javad Afshar
Bahareh Afshari
Navid Afqah
Kamand Amir-Soleimani
Mazda Ansari
Borzu Arjmand
Sattar Ouraki
Ibrahim Iraj-Zad
Shayesteh Irani
Behdad Babaei
Kourosh Babaei
Tina Bakhshi
Bahram Bedakhshani
Babak Borzouyeh
Marzieh Boroumand
Rakhshan Bani-E’temd
Ali Boustan
Hossein Behrouzi-Nia
Behzad Behzadpour
Behnam Behzadi
Seyyed Mohammad Beheshti
Nazanin Bayati
Hossein Pakdel
Elham Paveh-Nejad
Parviz Parastoui
Pantea Panahiha
Kioumars Pour-Ahmad
Hassan Pour-Shirzai
Tahmures Pour-Nazeri
Sohrab Pour-Nazeri
Keykhosro Pour-Nazeri
Kiarash Pouzeshi
Dariush Pir-Niakan
Mohammad Pirhadi
Afshin Pirhashemi
Iraj Taghi-Pour
Parviz Tanavoli
Kourosh Tahami
Tina Jame-Garmi
Ardavan Ja’farian
Ali Jafari Poyan
Ali Jalilvand
Vahid Jalilvand
Rouhollah Hejazi
Hadi Hejazi-Far
Farshad Hesami
Hassan Hassan-Doust
Mohammad Ali Hossein-Nejad
Ibrahim Haghighi
Shahab Hosseini
Sepideh Khosrojah
Hooman Khala’tbari
Reza Dadvie
Mohammad Reza Delpak
Bahram Radan
Shadmehr Rastin
Kamran Rasoulzadeh
Christophe Rezai
Habib Rezaei
Gholam Reza Rezaei
A’tefeh Razavi
Amir Shahab Razavian
Ali Rahbari
Hassan Riahi
Ali Reza Raisian
Leila Zare’
Ali Reza Zarin-Dast
Salar Zamanian
Jalil Saman
Amir Abbas Setayeshgar
Abbas Sajadi
Pourya Sarayie
Mohammad Sarir
Saeed Sa’di
Mahdi Sa’di
Masoud Salami
Kourosh Soleimani
Sae’d Soheili
Hooman Seidi
Ghazal Shakeri
Mohsen Shah-Ibrahimi
Ali Reza Shoja-Nouri
Homayoun Shajarian
Mohsen Sharifian
Masoud Shoari
Mahdi Shirzad
Abdol Vahab Shahidi
Ahad Sadeghi
Majid Salehi
Rasoul Sadr-Ameli
Behrouz Safarian
Fereshteh Taerpour
Tanaz Tabatabai
Mahyar Tarihi
Behzad Abdi
Ahamd A’rbani
Mohammad Mahdi Asgharpour
Aria Azimi-Nejad
Ali-Reza Alavian
Hossein Alizadeh
Behrouz Gharibpour
Mojtaba Askari
Hatef Alimardani
Homayoun Ghani-Zadeh
Hossein Ghiasi
Alireza A’sar
Sahab Elm
Sina Elm
Media Faraj-Nejad
Mehrdad Farid
Mehran Farhadi
Arash Farhangfar
Arash Ghanadi
Amir Ghanadi
Soroush Ghahramanlou
Farzaneh Kaboli
Abdoljabbar Kakaei
Ardeshir Kamkar
Houshang Kamkar
Mohammad Hadi Karimi
Niki Karimi
Ashkan Kamangari
Bardia Kiaras
Reza Kianian
Mostafa Kiai
Milad Kiai
Milad Key-Maram
Masoud Kimiaei
Soheila Golestani
Houshang Golmakani
Davood Ghanjei
Mohammad Reza Gohari
Hamid Motebasem
Kourosh Matin
Navid Mohammad-Zadeh
Milad Mohammadi
Amir Mardaneh
Hadi Marzban
Shabnam Moghadami
Hassan Mostafavi
Majid Matlabi
Hamid Reza Monabati
Seyyed Gholam-Reza Mousavi
Meysam Moulaei
Reza Mahdavi
Hossein Mahkam
Bijan Mir-Bagheri
Mojtaba Mirtahmasb
Maziar Miri
Shahin Najaf-Zadeh
Mehrdad Nosrati
Omid Nemati
Hamidreza Nour-Bakhsh
Javad Nouroz-Beigi
Afshin Hashemi
Karen Homayounfar
Mohammad Reza Honarmand
Hossein Yari
Abbas Yari
Reza Yazdani
And all artists who will sign this letter…